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NONONONONO YOU GUYS DONT GET IT THE GODS ARE AMERICANIZED!!! ZEUS IS A PARANOID TYRANT BECAUSE THATS HOW AMERICANS THINK OF KINGS!!! POSEIDON IS MELLOW RATHER THAN TEMPERMENTAL BECAUSE THE ANCIENT GREEKS DIDNT KNOW HOW TO TRAVERSE THE MEDITTERANEAN AND THE SEA WAS VERY DEADLY TO THEM BUT AMERICANS VIEW THE SEA AS A VACATION!!! ARES IS VULGAR AND CRUEL AND A BULLY BECAUSE THATS HOW (most) AMERICANS VIEW WAR - AS A LAST RESORT BECAUSE WAR IS RUTHLESS!!!! DEMETER IS AN OVERBEARING MOTHER IN LAW BECAUSE AMERICAN WOMEN HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN ANCIENT GREEK WOMEN AND NOW HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE WHO THEY MARRY SO IN THIS VERSION OF THEIR STORY PERSEPHONE MADE THE CHOICE TO WALK INTO THE UNDERWORLD AND BECOME A QUEEN AND STEP INTO HER OWN POWER BUT HER MOTHER CANT LET HER DAUGHTER GROW UP AND TRIES TO HOLD ON TOO TIGHT - THEIR STORY IS STILL THE PAIN THAT A LOT OF MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS EXPERIENCE JUST DIFFERENT TO ANCIENT MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS!!!! THEY'RE MODERN!!!!! THEY'RE AMERICANIZED!!!! PLEASE NO LISTEN TO ME THEY REFLECT THE CULTURE AND THE TIMES LISTEN TO-

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Did you know that you can waste your free time by not knowing which activity to do so you do none of them

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I saw a sign at a nearby village advertising a "veillée", a storytelling evening, which sounded intriguing, so I went out of curiosity—it turned out to be an old lady who had arranged a circle of chairs in her garden and prepared drinks, and who wanted to tell folk tales and stories from her youth. Apparently she was telling someone at the market the other day that she missed the ritual of the "veillée" from pre-television days, when people would gather in the evening and tell stories, and the people she was talking to were like, well let's do a veillée! And then she put up the sign.

About 15 people came, and she sat down and started telling us stories—I loved the way she made everything sound like it had happened just yesterday and she was there, even tales she'd got from her grandmother, and the way she continually assumed we knew all the people she mentioned, and everyone spontaneously played along; she'd be like "And Martin, the bonesetter—you know Martin," (everyone nods—of course, Martin) "We never liked him much" and everyone nodded harder, our collective distaste for Martin now a shared cultural heritage of our tiny microcosm. She started with telling us the story of the communal bread oven in the village. The original oven was destroyed during the Revolution; people used to pay to use the local aristocrat's oven, but of course around 1789 both the aristocrat and his oven were disposed of in a glorious blaze of liberty, equality, and complete lack of foresight.

Then the villagers felt really daft for having destroyed a perfectly serviceable oven that they could have now started using for free. "But you know what things were like during the revolution." (Everyone nodded sagely—who among us hasn't demolished our one and only source of bread-baking equipment in a fit of revolutionary zeal?)

The village didn't have a bread oven for decades, people travelled to another village to make bread; and then in the 19th century the village council finally voted to build a new oven. It was a communal endeavour, everyone pitched in with some stones or tools or labour, and the oven was built—but it collapsed immediately after the construction was finished. Consternation. Not to be deterred, people re-built the oven, with even more effort and care—and the second one also collapsed.

People realised that something was amiss, and the village council convened. After a lot of serious discussion, during which no one so much as mentioned the possibility of a structural flaw, people reached the only logical conclusion: the drac had sabotaged their oven. Twice. (The drac, in these parts, is the son of the devil.) The logic here, I suppose, was that no one but the devil's own child would dare to stand between French people and their bread.

The next step was even more obvious: they passed around a hat to raise money, assuming the devil’s son was after a cash donation. But (and I'm skipping a few twists and turns of the story here) the son of the devil did not want money, he wanted half of every batch of bread, for as long as the village oven stood. Consternation.

People simply could not afford to give away half of their bread, and were about to abandon the idea of having their own oven altogether—but then Saint Peter came to the rescue. (In case you didn't know, Saint Peter happens to regularly visit this one tiny village in the French countryside to check that its inhabitants are doing okay and are not encountering oven issues.) Saint Peter reminded them of one precious piece of information they had overlooked: holy water burns the devil.

People re-built the oven, for the third time. The son of the devil returned, to destroy it and/or claim his half of the first batch—but on that day, the villagers had organised a grand communal spring cleaning, dousing every street and alley in the village with copious amounts of holy water. The poor drac simply could not access the oven; every possible path scorched his feet for reasons he couldn't quite explain. So he was standing there, smouldering gently and wondering what was going on, when some passing tramp seemed to take pity on him, pointed at his satchel and told him to turn himself into a rat and jump in there, and the tramp would carry him where he wished to go. The devil's son, probably a bit frazzled at this point, agreed without much thought, became a rat and jumped in the satchel, and of course that's the point when everyone in the village sprang from the shadows, wielding sticks, shovels, pans, and started beating the devil's son senseless. (Old lady, calmly: "You could hear his bones crack.") So the son of Satan slithered back to Hell and never returned to destroy the village oven again—and the spring cleaning tradition endured; the streets were washed with holy water once a year after that, both to commemorate this glorious day of civic resistance when the village absolutely bodied the devil's offspring and to maintain basic oven safety standards. (Old lady: "But we don't bother anymore… That's too bad.")

She told us five stories, most of them artfully blending actual local events or anecdotes from her youth with folk tale elements, it was so delightful. She thanked us for coming and said she'd love to do this again sometime. I went home reflecting that listening to an old lady happily tell stories of dubious historical veracity involving the Revolution, property damage, demonic mischief and baffling municipal decision-making is literally my ideal Saturday night activity.

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This scientist crafts stunning visual art through chemistry.

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BDG would like to meet aliens

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Being good, eating his veggies

(eat your veggies)

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Breathtaking work from @embroiderybynusik on Reddit and Instagram

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Here have this not at all relevant *cough cough* reflection on the power of fear, now in audio form!

Can I be honest there’s a part of the “I am No Man” scene that people overlook all the time, and it’s just how easy the Fell-Beast was to kill. We see throughout the movies that people don’t attack the Fell-Beast, they’re too scared, or the things are too fast, but the few times we do see it, it always goes easily - one of them flies away because it’s shot with just one arrow, while the Oliphaunts can take hundreds without much harm. When Eowyn goes, before she removes her helmet, and hacks at the monster, its neck tears itself open and it dies almost as casually as any Orc in any other scene. 

These things, these monsters, constantly played up as mythic beasts and monsters and horrific steeds of the Nazgul, are just as much flesh and blood as an Orc, and not exactly particularly strong flesh or blood either. 

Now, it could just be for drama, since these things are pretty scary and plot-centric so having them fall and die all the time would wreck the atmosphere, but also, it feels like a sort of shattering of the mythos around the Nazgul. Their horrific steeds, fast as any bird and as deadly as their masters, take very little effort to dispatch, and the Witch King himself just sort of takes a stab wound from someone giving a clever Hamlet-style twist. 

This extends to elsewhere - the Nazgul on weathertop, these immortal creatures that live as long as the Ring exists, are scared off by a guy with a sword and a torch, two things they really don’t have much reason to fear. The Uruk-Hai, the bred warriors are practically chaff to the wind, with even untrained Hobbits being able to hold their own one-on-one. 

The Enemy is something built up in LOTR to be this great, evil, monstrous force that no one can beat, but it seems like almost all its servants will fall easily if one is willing to stick through the terror. But there aren’t many willing to face the Nazgul head-on. 

More than Orcs, maybe the fearful aggrandizing of his power is Sauron’s greatest weapon.

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Last art of the day is skinnydipping-in-the-rooftop-pool Nathan. Inspired by my friend was asking about how fat works in water and my difficulty putting it into words

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

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I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

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The thing about spn that is hard to watch imo is that its a show that supports the existence of the supernatural and the spirit world but it distinctly lacks spirituality and soulfulness

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Now dear Théodred lies in darkness, most loyal of fighters. The sound of the harp shall not wake the warrior; nor shall the man hold a golden wine-cup, nor good hawk swing through the hall, nor the swift horse stamp in the courtyard...

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i hate the part of depression that’s like all the things that bring me joy are empty and i can’t do anything. like come on bitch i know you love book can you just be happy about book :/